The Jungle

I am definitely not as on the ball as Blake is in writing all this, but I thought I would write down my thoughts as well since I do view things from a different angle. I am tempted to write it all on one giant entry, but it is probably easier to take a few days to write it all.

So we arrived here in the Philippines on Friday, and on Sunday we started to make plans to head out into the jungle. Jenna put in a lot of time and effort in order to rearrange her schedule to get off of her shifts and miss school so that we could go. On Sunday we were planning to go to church but decided it would be a better use of our time to pack and prepare to go. I don't remember what we actually accomplished that day except going to the mall to get posters for our health teaching. I was pretty nervous about teaching health because I really don't know anything about it, the food groups I was given to teach about each had a 10 sentence paragraph about them in the book I was given to study from. Perfect. Jenna had swing shift Sunday afternoon (2:00-10:00pm). Angela and I joined her while Blake went off to explore a bit of Davao. He ended up having lunch with a taxi driver who gave him a few tips for traveling around the city. No births happened during the shift which was too bad, but I've got a few days left to go with Jenna, hopefully I get to see one. Tomorrow marks the one week left stage of our trip!

To continue on the story, I left shift early because I was pretty tired, Blake came to pick me up from the clinic and walk back to our hotel with me. I fell asleep before Blake even came to bed, I was so tired. Monday morning saw us awake at 5:00ish to finish packing up, paying up and eating up before our big trip. We dragged all of our luggage to Jenna's place to leave it there. Blake and I packed together in my little backpack enough of everything for 5 days. It was pretty tight (although I can fit socks and underwear in a fairly small space, boxers, giant shorts and T-shirts to fit a 6'5" man take up a lot more room!)We did manage to fit, and even have enough room for toothpaste, toothbrush and deodorant. Blake calls me a "Pampered camper". Because it is so hot here, all I needed to sleep in was a small sheet sewn in a tube and Blake used Angela's sleeping bag insert. Just enough to keep us covered. We left Jenna's house at 6:15 and headed out to the road to catch the bus. While we were waiting I asked if anyone managed to grab the toilet paper. Negative. After a quick debate on the merits of carrying toilet paper we decided to go for it and Jenna ran back to her house to grab it. Just as she was on the other side of the road on her way back we waved the bus down and we all made it on. Whew. We traveled for about an hour or so on the bus. I was a bit nervous about the bus because my very last bus experience in India ended up with a very sick me and puke all over the place. Not good. Thankfully I didn't even feel a little bit nauseous. We made it to our stop and hopped off the bus. A man named Kuya June was there to meet us and we hopped on a Jeepney with him. 45 minutes or so on the jeepney and we made it to destination stop #2. The Mayor's office. Just before we went into the mayor's office we met Ate Mary-Jean (the health worker we were going to help) and a friend of Jenna's from Mercy, Genevieve. It was a good surprise for Jenna to see Genevieve again and then we found out she was going to be coming with us as well. At the mayors office we had to go up and meet him, tell him our names, where we were from, what we were doing in the Philippines, and why we wanted to enter into the Bukid. It was a cool experience, he seemed to be an amazing mayor, while we were there he actually hired Genevieve to be another health worker along with Ate Mary-Jean out in the bukid which was a very exciting moment for them. We were offered coffee (which, by the way, even Angela drank, and couldn't stop drinking it the whole time!!)and sat and listened to them talking in their language. Kuya Eduardo (the mayor) allowed us to enter into his area and so off we went for the next stop.

We stepped outside of the office and met our drivers, Kuya Jinny and Kuya Jo-Jo. We somehow managed to fit all of us and our luggage onto 3 bikes. On my bike was myself (riding sidesaddle on the gas tank in front of the driver), our driver, Angela, and Jenna, plus some backpacks and other bags. We drove for about half an hour until we arrived at Kuya June and Ate Mary-Jean's house. We thought we were staying there for the night, but after we walked around the village and had a bit of a cool off in the river nearby, we discovered that we were going to continue on that day, out to yet another village.

Okay, I am too tired to type more right now, more later!!